Output ArrayList to excel in jsf

Question

Hi,
I want to show an arraylist (or a string with data if arraylist is not possible) in excel format within my jsf page, but i don't want to save the data to a file first... is this possible?
I've tried to do the following, but the data is not what i wanted...
  public String generateExcelOutput(List list){
    ByteArrayOutputStream byteArrayOutputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    ObjectOutputStream objectOutputStream;
    try {
      objectOutputStream = new ObjectOutputStream(byteArrayOutputStream);
      objectOutputStream.writeObject(list);
    } catch (IOException e) {
       throw new FacesException(e);
    byte[] excelData = byteArrayOutputStream.toByteArray();
    FacesContext faces = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
    HttpServletResponse response = (HttpServletResponse) faces.getExternalContext().getResponse();
    response.setContentType("application/vnd.ms-excel");
    response.setContentLength(excelData.length);
    try {
      ServletOutputStream out;
      out = response.getOutputStream();
      out.write(excelData);
    } catch (IOException e) {
      throw new FacesException(e);
    faces.responseComplete();
    return null;
  }--> a popup disappears with the question to save or open...that's correct but i also get a notice that the file is corrupt and the data is not shown as it should be...
Can anyone help me, perhaps with an example...
Thanks!

Answer 1

By using jakarta-poi, output the workbook like this...
HSSFWorkbook generatedExcel = null;
generatedExcel = generateExcel(blah blah);
generatedExcel.write(response.getOutputStream()); If you are trying to export your datatables to excel, use excelcreator
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=137466&package_id=188186